Emancipation

“Reform and opening” started from the top with the seminal leadership transition from Mao to Deng. Deng Xiaoping heralded China’s boom in late 1978 when he called for experiments with “economic democracy” and “emancipation” from orthodox ideas. But the boom was not simply a top-down, state-orchestrated phenomenon. In fact, the biggest contribution of the state, especially in the first phase of growth, was to get out of the way. Farmers were liberated from collectives, sparking a wildfire of capitalism in the countryside. Urban markets and industry were freed to “grow out of the plan,” making profits on surplus production and creating powerful incentives for rapid growth.

The Birth of Private Workers, The Death of People’s Communes

One Child Policy Stimulated Growth

People Who Fall Behind Will Be Beaten

Deng Understood That the World Had Changed

Wu Jianmin

Former Chinese Ambassador to the UN, France, and the Netherlands

Wu Jianmin is a professor of International Studies at China Foreign Affairs University and chairman of the Shanghai Centre of International Studies. He also serves as vice-chairman of the Institute of Strategy and Management, Beijing, and is a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of the Foreign Ministry. Before he became president of the China Foreign Affairs University, Wu served as ambassador of China to the Netherlands, the United Nations Office in Geneva, and to France.

Wu was a faculty member of the Salzburg Global Seminar Sessions 450, Russia: The 2020 Perspective, and 458, The United States in the World: New Strategies of Engagement, both in 2008.

I could read Marshall Chen Yi's emotions. "You guys come to China, you may invade China. The Soviets from the north, India from the west and America and Chiang Kai-shek from the south. We are ready. My hair is going grey. I am waiting for that moment." That kind of statement was indicative of the state of mind of the Chinese leadership. In 1978, in China, we had such an important meeting, the Third Plenum. We decided to focus on the economy, on the modernization. That was a big change, a strategic turning point. In a way, Deng Xiaoping understood that the world had changed.